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Migrant women and the

Nordic labour markets

Berit Berg, Research Manager/Associate Professor

NTNU Social research

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

berit.berg@svt.ntnu.no

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Between isolation and emancipation

� Labour market participation among migrant

women

� Segmentation and differentiation

� Ethnic division

� Gender division

� Class division

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Unemployment rates among

migrant women – Norway

Men Women

Whole population (16-74 years) 2,5 2,5

Ethnic Norwegians 2,1 2,1

First generation migrants 7,2 7,5

Nordic countries 3,2 2,5

WesternEurope 2,4 2,7

New EU members (Eastern-Europe) 2,0 4,9

Eastern Europe 8,3 9,6

North America og Oceania 3,7 3,4

Asia 9,5 10,7

Africa 15,5 13,5

South and Central America 7,5 8,4

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Employment

Men Women

Whole population 73 66

Western immigrants 74 66

Non Western immigrants 58 47

Afghanistan 44 19

Somalia 35 20

Iraq 47 22

Pakistan 60 28

Turkey 59 37

Russia 45 51

Sri Lanka 72 53

Vietnam 64 56

Bosnia Hercegovina 64 58

The Philippines 68 63

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Occupation among migrant women

0,00

5,00

10,00

15,00

20,00

25,00

30,00

35,00

40,00

Managers

Professionals

Associate professionals

Office clerks

Service workers and shop and market

sales workers

Craft workers

Plant and machine operators and

assemblers

Other occupations

Non-w estern female immigrants

Women in total population

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Four migrant women

� Maria from Latin-America

� Van from Vietnam

� Mirna from Bosnia

� Zahra from Iran

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Project examples

� ”Quo Vadis?” in Oslo

� The Care worker project in Trondheim

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”Quo Vadis?” – some experiences

I never went to school myself, but when I came to ”Quo Vadis?” I decided to give my children, especially my daughters, higher education. And I did. Now one of my daughters is studying medicine, another is studying dentistry, and the third one is studying in England… Had it not been for the fact that I have a job, I would not been in the position to send my children to other schools. Me and my husband are able to make ends meet now.

”Quo Vadis?” has changed a lot of things in my life. It has given me self-esteem… I never went to school in Pakistan. When I started here, I thought I could not make it. It was difficult for me in the beginning, but now I can write, I can go out and shop, and I can go to work. We are about 30-40 women from my neighbourhood. All of us are nowworking and we are very much satisfied. It is a big help to us.

When you have a job, you can do whatever you want. People would not think you areweak in a way.

”Quo Vadis?” has changed my life. It has changed my way of thinking.

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Success factors

• Empowerment

• Tailor made programmes

• Cooparation beetween all actors involved

• Supervision and close follow-up

• Training programmes in a working life context

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Challenges

� Institutional level� Legislation

� Welfare policy

� Labour market measures

� Organisational level� Attitudes

� Work place measures

� Affirmative action

� ”The scandinavian model” – cooperation between employers and union

� Individual level� Language

� Education

� Formal and informal skills

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